


cauchemar

by nifeandaccurate (12AM)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Death (in a dream), Drowning (in a dream), Gen, Nightmares, Podfic Available, brief mention of vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 16:19:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4269906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/12AM/pseuds/nifeandaccurate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>After Fischer, after inception, she doesn't know what to do with herself. Ever since she looked back, since she went running back to Cobb after that first dream trial gone wrong, she knew it would come to this. She can't go back, not with somnacin still burning through her system and fever dreams running through her mind, to the world of academia and smooth unmoving stonewall. </em>
</p><p>This is Ariadne, stuck between worlds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cauchemar

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically my love song to Ariadne. PS, come hit me up on [tumblr](http://nifeandaccurate.tumblr.com), join me in my makeshift Ariadne Appreciation Club! 
> 
> Much love to [Trevania](http://archiveofourown.org/users/trevania/) for the beta and [Velificantes](http://archiveofourown.org/users/velificatio/) for the feedback!
> 
> Edit: The lovely flosculatory recorded a podfic for this! You can find it [here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7596319)

 

After Fischer, after inception, she doesn't know what to do with herself. Ever since she looked back, since she went running back to Cobb after that first dream trial gone wrong, she knew it would come to this. She can't go back, not with somnacin still burning through her system and fever dreams running through her mind, to the world of academia and smooth unmoving stonewall. She needs a world that's ready to fight back— where the ground might fall apart beneath her feet and the walls shift as she tries to find the exit. She needs mazes with five entrances and no exits and timers with bombs strapped to their backs.

After landing in Los Angeles, she wanders the city for a few days, feeling restless and itching to crawl out of her skin. At the hotel, she sleeps restlessly, tossing and turning. She takes a trip out to see the Golden Gate Bridge and thinks about how she could turn it into a weapon. She thinks about turning it in on itself, a mobius strip suspension bridge, and wonders how long she could keep traffic moving before it all crashed and burned. The next day, she gets on the earliest flight back to Paris.

_The first day in Los Angeles, she has a nightmare. She goes down into Limbo, chasing Fischer. But instead of washing up on the shore, she wakes up chin deep in waves. Cobb's a distant figure out on the sand and she tries yelling for help but saltwater fills her mouth and she chokes, suffocating in the smell of brine and seaweed. Below her, the ocean stretches endlessly down, only dark shadows beneath her feet and she's drowning, she's drowning and she doesn't know what's going to happen when darkness claims her._

_She wakes up (again), tangled up in her sheets and sweating. She fumbles out of the bed and to the bathroom, retching nothing but water into the bathtub. She stays up the rest of the night, turning her bishop over in her hand._

She tries going back to classes for a while. She shows up back in the familiar auditoriums (Are they familiar? It feels like ages since she stepped foot here) and makes the requisite apologies to her professors and lies through her teeth about a family emergency— there was the death of a relative, very tragic. But in lectures, her mind wanders through spiraling mazes. The reality of architecture has lost its appeal. She used to imagine putting buildings in the skyline, one by one, slowly remolding it to her desires. But in dreamshare, she can create the whole skyline and tear it down again in a heartbeat. Buildings become an extension of herself and she can lead dreamers through the maze like a conductor.

When she's not in lectures, she lays out drafting paper and draws impossible buildings. Stairwells inverted on themselves, alleyways looped into one another, walls extending into the sky. It's frustrating, wanting to draw something that can't exist in paper or concrete when she can see the infrastructure in her head.

She itches for the rush of somnacin to take her somewhere she can build. Reality isn't enough for her anymore. In dreams, there are no limits, no constraints of physics or gravity or logic to keep walls in place and the ground from shifting.

_This time, they're in the third level and Cobb's peering at Mal through the sniper scope, frozen. Before she can wrench the gun away and take aim, Mal turns and looks at her through the distance and layers of glass. Mal fires, once, twice, clean shots and Ariadne wakes with the sound of gunfire ringing in her ears. As she lies there in her bed, gasping for breath, she wonders what kind of person Mal was before dreamshare killed her._

Every day, she checks the news for mentions of Robert Fischer. At first there was a flurry of photographs of him at his father's funeral, clothed in black and somber faced. There were rumors about how he left the ceremony before Robert Browning, whispers about their splintered relationship, but nothing concrete. The chatter faded into nothing, no references to him at business meetings, no sightings on the street, just radio silence. Despite the lull, she still checks, waiting for something to bubble up to the surface. She can't have done it all for nothing.

_The dreams don't stop. When she opens her eyes, she's sitting in the car next to Cobb in the first level, looking for Fischer in the rain. This time, the train hits them head on. After the collision, she lies in the wrecked remains of the car, bleeding out into the asphalt. She can't see where Cobb landed through the mangled car frame and when she tries to scream, nothing comes out. She can't feel her legs. She bleeds to death and when she wakes up, she can't stop shaking. For an hour afterwards, she stands in a freezing cold shower and looks for blood in the water._

It's a month before the news breaks. At two in the morning, she gets a flurry of texts.

"congra tulatiosn - e"  
"Thank you for your work. - Saito"  
"Congrats!! - yusuf"  
"Good job - A"

(Nothing from Cobb. He's washed his hands of them.) 

She blinks away the sleep in her eyes and stares at her buzzing phone, uncomprehending, before sitting up in her bed and turning on the television. She flips to the first news channel she can find and the two reporters on screen are talking about Robert Fischer and his plans to dissolve his father's company. After a second, the headlines sink in. She leaps out of bed and dances around her room, punching the air. It's so nice to know that it was real. She went to limbo for this man and in return he took the idea they handed to him. It feels like she's been holding her breath until now. When she finally falls back to sleep, it's deep and dreamless. 

After that, she only lasts a week before she caves in and calls Arthur. The phone rings once, twice, ten times and then goes to voicemail. She doesn't leave a message. 

_This time, Fischer's projections get her. A bullet through the neck, enough to paralyze but not enough to kill. She dies listening to Arthur and Cobb arguing about limbo. She's afraid she'll end up there instead of waking up. When she does wakes up, it's a relief. She keeps her totem on her bedside table now._

Professor Miles asks to meet with her after class. She walks down the imposing hallway to his office, trying to not feel guilty for the way she doesn't pay attention in lecture. His door is heavy and wooden and when she knocks, the sound echoes down the hall. He calls for her to come in, voice muffled. 

The last time she saw him, they were in the Los Angeles airport and he was bringing Cobb home. She watched as Cobb walked through the gates in a haze and Miles guided him out. She stayed by the baggage carousel, keeping her eyes averted and staring at her suitcase making its lazy path round and round until they were out of sight. Since then, it looks like he's lost a few of the years around his eyes.

He asks her to sit down and in solemn voice, says, "I'm so sorry, Ariadne."  She stares at him, not comprehending. "I wanted Dom to be able to go home so I let him take you."

She thinks about telling him, "I was never taken, it was my choice," but bites her tongue.

When he had called out her name in the crowded hallway those months ago, she didn't think to wonder why he wouldn't meet her eyes as he introduced her to Dom Cobb. But she has never thought of herself as a sacrificial lamb. She doesn't have any regrets. 

After everything, she can't find it in herself to resent Cobb for what he did. She wants to hate him for lying to her, lying to everyone about the stakes of the dream, for pretending his mind wasn't trying to pick them off one by one. But she's got dreamshare under her skin now, and he's the one who opened her eyes.

_That night, she dreams she tries to raise a city before her. She can see it, clear in her mind but the ground refuses to rise. It feels wrong, like she's lost some part of herself. She drowns herself in the ocean to try and wake up. When she opens her eyes, she's drenched in sweat and she feels like she's forgotten something. The next day, she remembers the dream and bites down on her lip until she tastes blood._

She's walking to classes in the morning when her phone buzzes in her pocket and she draws it out to see who's calling. The name on the screen says "A" and she smiles. Turning around, she starts walking back to her apartment. She answers the call and says, "It's about time."

That night, she packs a bag and buys a plane ticket.

After her second job, the dreams stop.

 

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] cauchemar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7596319) by [flosculatory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flosculatory/pseuds/flosculatory)




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